1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure generally relates to an optoelectronic conversion device and, more particularly, to an optical engine assembly and manufacturing method thereof capable of reducing the alignment complexity and improving the alignment accuracy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Good alignment between the optical fiber and the laser light source or photodetector can improve the coupling efficiency of light transmission. Due to the increase of the transmission capacity, how to improve the light coupling between a plurality of optical fibers and a plurality of laser light sources or photodetectors becomes an important issue.
Please refer to FIG. 1, it shows a schematic diagram of a conventional optical engine assembly 9, which includes a substrate 91, a supporting member 92, a light redirecting element 93, an optoelectronic device 94 and a plurality of conductive lines 95. The optoelectronic device 94 is disposed on an upper surface of the substrate 91 and configured to generate or receive optical signals transmitting along a normal direction n of the substrate 91. The conductive lines 95 are formed on the upper surface of the substrate 91 and electrically coupled to the optoelectronic device 94 so as to transmit electrical signals to and from the optoelectronic device 94. The supporting member 92 is configured to support the light redirecting element 93 such that the light redirecting element 93 can be aligned with the optoelectronic device 94. The light redirecting element 93 redirects optical signals transmitting in a direction along the normal direction n to a direction parallel to the upper surface of the substrate 91 and the redirected optical signals are transmitted to an external optical connector.
Please refer to FIG. 2, it shows a bottom view of the light redirecting element 93 of FIG. 1, wherein a plurality of V-grooves 931 are formed in parallel at a bottom surface of the light redirecting element 93. A plurality of optical fibers 932 are respectively placed in the V-grooves 931 and an adhesive 933 is used to fix the optical fibers 932 inside the V-grooves 931. The optical fibers 932 are finally connected to an optical connector so as to transmit optical signals generated by the optoelectronic device 94 to outside of the optical engine assembly 9 or to transmit external optical signals to the optoelectronic device 94.
Please refer to FIG. 3, it shows a cross-sectional view taken along line III-III′ of the optical engine assembly 9 of FIG. 1. In the optical engine assembly 9, the light redirecting element 93 is configured to redirect vertical optical signals generated from the optoelectronic device 94 to horizontal optical signals or to redirect horizontal optical signals to vertical optical signals to be received by the optoelectronic device 94. The redirecting mechanism is to form a mirror surface 932S at the front end of the optical fibers 932, and the mirror surface 932 has a 45-degree beveled surface with respect to the normal direction n so as to reflect optical signals. However, in the alignment of the light redirecting element 93 and the optoelectronic device 94, the mirror surface 932S has to be exactly aligned with the optoelectronic device 94 such that a three-dimensional alignment (including the longitudinal alignment, transverse alignment and rotation alignment) has to be performed. Therefore, this structure has a complicated manufacturing process and it is difficult to effectively improve the alignment accuracy thereof.
Accordingly, the present disclosure further provides an optical engine assembly and manufacturing method thereof that can simplify the alignment complexity and improve the alignment accuracy and coupling efficiency.